The surface (or the topcoat) for both fuser and pressure members in oil-less fusing of toner material requires ultra low surface energy to release the substrate. An improved topcoat material for oil-less fusing is high-temperature tolerant thermoplastic, such as FEP, PFA, or PTFE described in US Published Applications 2007/0298252, 2007/0298251, 2007/0298217, and 2007/0296122 each of which were published on Dec. 27, 2007.
However, the applicants have observed during fuser printing performance tests that paper edges, particularly of thick paper, can occasionally leave wear marks on the topcoat of the fuser surface. These paper edge marks can show up on wider paper as gloss-variation artifacts when subsequent prints are made on a substrate covering the worn area. Moreover, for printing special images, particularly one with in-track stripes of area of no toners, foreign materials from paper are seen to periodically accumulate on the surface of the topcoat due to the absence of toners. Such foreign materials may be, for example, the fine particulate clay or calcium carbonate fillers often present on the surface of the paper being printed. The accumulation of such foreign particulate material on the surface of the topcoat can result in undesirable artifacts, such as a gloss variation band artifact occurring when printing different image content subsequently as a full page image.
In the past, to avoid such artifacts, the fuser members were simply replaced. To obviate the need and expense associated with completely replacing the fuser members, the applicants developed an in-line apparatus for refurbishing fuser members in-situ which is described and claimed in commonly assigned, copending U.S. application Ser. No. 11/746,083.
The applicants have subsequently observed that paper edges, particularly of thick paper, can also leave wear marks on the topcoat of the pressure member surface, and that foreign materials from paper can also periodically accumulate on the surface of the pressure member topcoat. Consequently, undesirable image artifacts may be caused by the pressure members as well as the fuser members in electrophotographic printers. The present invention is an apparatus for refurbishing cylindrical members within an electrophotographic printer that obviates the need and expense associated with completely replacing the members
The practice of the proposed refurbishing scheme and the accessory surface cleaning scheme depends on the severity of the artifact present on the member surface, which in turn is a function of the service history of the member.